From Trocchi to Trainspotting: Scottish Critical Theory Since 1960

Michael Gardiner

Abstract

This book charts the course of Scottish Critical Theory since the 1960s. It provocatively argues that ‘French’ critical-theoretical ideas have developed in tandem with Scottish writing during this period. Its themes can be read as a breakdown in Scottish Enlightenment thinking after empire — precisely the process which permitted the rise of ‘theory’. The book places within a wider theoretical context writers such as Muriel Spark, Edwin Morgan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, James Kelman, Alexander Trocchi, Janice Galloway, Alan Warner, and Irvine Welsh, as well as more recent work by Alan Riach and Pat ... More

This book charts the course of Scottish Critical Theory since the 1960s. It provocatively argues that ‘French’ critical-theoretical ideas have developed in tandem with Scottish writing during this period. Its themes can be read as a breakdown in Scottish Enlightenment thinking after empire — precisely the process which permitted the rise of ‘theory’. The book places within a wider theoretical context writers such as Muriel Spark, Edwin Morgan, Ian Hamilton Finlay, James Kelman, Alexander Trocchi, Janice Galloway, Alan Warner, and Irvine Welsh, as well as more recent work by Alan Riach and Pat Kane, who can be seen to take the ‘post-Enlightenment’ narrative forward. In doing so, it draws on the work of the Scottish thinkers John Macmurray and R.D. Laing as well as the continental philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Paul Virilio.